Papers in Honor of Paul C. Standley
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)\:) \ iageiSTAiLEy NATURAL IHISTORY MUSEUM Photograph by Louis O. Will STANDLEY ABOUT 1952 Working in the herbarium at Escuela Agrícola Panamericana Homage to STANDLEY Papers in honor of Paul C. Standley Edited by Louis O. Williams CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 63-22i.Jf3 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM PRESS 1963 — Contents—Resumen Homenaje a Standley—Homage to Standley 5 Louis O. Williams Paul C. Standley and His Work as Revealed Through His Letters 7 C. V. Morton Asi Vi Yo a Standley 23 Faustino Miranda Man in a Hurry 27 Lyman B. Smith Paul C. Standley Amigo Sincero de Honduras 29 Antonio Molina R. My Debt to Paul C. Standley 33 Robert E. Woodson, Jr. Elogio del Dr. Paul C. Standley 37 Armando Dugand Paul C. Standley 40 Clifford C Gregg Botánicos de Antaño—Paul C. Standley 44 Oton Jiménez The Floristic Work of Paul Carpenter Standley 51 Bernice G. Schubert 1 Expediciones en América Central, 1925-26 54 Salvador Calderón Paul C. Standley 60 Llewelyn Williams La Exploración Botánica de Costa Rica y la Obra de Paul C. Standley 63 Juvenal Valerio Rodríguez Paul C. Standley 69 Charles H. Lankester Semblanza de Paul C. Standley 71 Jorge León Don Pablito 75 Paul H. Allen La Orden del Quetzal 79 Manuel Orellana Cardona My Acquaintance and Experiences with Paul C. Standley 84 Earl Edward Sherff Una Impresión Personal de Paul Standley 88 José CUATRECASAS Standley and the Rubiaceae 90 Julian A. Steyermark Paul C. Standley 95 Maximino Martínez Standley and Tropical American Botany 97 F. R. FOSBERG Standley—Sixty Years Ago 100 Otto M. Smith Tribute to Standley 103 T. G. YUNCKER Note to the Editor 104 Ellsworth P. Killip Personal Recollections of Paul C. Standley 105 Paul Russell Introduction to Standley 106 Margery C. Carlson Tales Out of School, and Other Yarns 108 Louis O. Willl\ms Homenaje a Standley Homage to Standley 1884-1963 The collection of papers presented here is the result of a desire to honor one of America's best known and most prolific systematic botanists, for many years one of the driving forces behind the study of neotropical botany. Paul Carpenter Standley came to Chicago Natural History Museum in 1928 and retired at the end of 1950. Partial assessment of his con- tributions to knowledge of the botany of our tropics will be found in several of the papers to follow. He also wrote on the systematics of temperate regions in America, but the greater part of his life was given over to study of plants of the New World tropics. Standley was not only an outstanding student of the neotropical floras in the herbarium but he also made a large number of field trips, covering every country between the borders of the United States and Colombia. Upon his retirement from the Museum he went to Honduras to live, where he continued to work actively for several years more. It was there that he spent the remainder of his days. In July, 1961, I wrote to about thirty persons who had known Standley, most of them botanists, to invite contribu- tions to this projected paper. We are pleased that so many busy people have taken the time to contribute to this effort. We know that Dr. Standley would have appreciated it, and on our own part we wish to thank each of the contributors most sincerely. It was our hope that these papers would be published while Standley was living, but that was not to be. They were writ- ten while he was living, some have been modified slightly by authors while others remain as they were originally. La colección de trabajos que aquí presentamos es el resul- tado de un plan del Chicago Natural History Museum para honrar a uno de los más conocidos y más prolíficos de los botánicos americanos dedicados a la botánica sistemática, que por muchos años fué una de las fuerzas impulsoras de los estudios de la botánica neotropical. Pablo Carpenter Stand- ley vino a este Museo en 1928 y se retiró al fin del año 1950. Parte del valor de su contribucción al conocimiento de la botánica de nuestros trópicos puede apreciarse en algunos de los trabajos que siguen. El escribió también sobre la siste- mática de las regiones templadas de América pero la mayor parte de su vida la dedicó a las regiones neotropicales. Stand- ley no solo fué un gran estudioso de las floras neotropicales en los herbarios, sino que también hizo un gran número de ex- pediciones cubriendo todos los paises comprendidos entre las fronteras de los Estados Unidos y Colombia. Después de su retiro del Museo fué a vivir a Honduras, donde continuó activo por varios años más. Es allí donde pasó el resto de sus días. En julio de 1961 yo escribí a unas treinta personas de las que conocieron a Standley, mayoramente botánicos, invitán- dolas a contribuir a la realización de este trabajo entonces en proyecto. Nosotros estamos complacidos de que muchas per- sonas muy ocupadas hayan podido dedicar unos momentos de su tiempo a este homenaje, y sabemos que el Dr. Standley lo hubiera apreciado grandemente. Por nuestra parte damos las gracias más sinceras a cada uno de los que han tenido la gentileza de cooperar. Especialmente damos las gracias al colega Dr. Patricio Ponce de León por su ayuda en la edición de estas páginas escritas en español. Eran nuestros deseos que las contribucciones aquí presen- tadas se editaran en vida de Standley, pero esto no fué posible. Estas fueron escritas mientras él vivía, algunas han sido modi- ficadas lijeramente por sus autores mientras que otras perma- necen como fueron escritas originalmente. Louis O. Williams Paul C. Standley and His Work as Revealed Through His Letters C. \\ Morton Paul C. Standley's published works are numerous and al- most uniformly lengthy major works, totaling many thousands of pages. However, he was not, as it might seem, a discursive writer like Fernald, for instance, who could and did go into long discussions concerning the history of past misidentifica- tions of the \'arious species he discussed, with pungent inci- dental comments on the merits or demerits of other workers, past and present. Fernald's writings revealed his own per- sonality. Standley's writing, always professional and stylisti- cally good, can only be described as business-like, in the best meaning of the term—concise, factual, and impersonal; con- sequently, it reveals little of Standley's own self.^ Standley's letters are another matter. He was a volumi- nous correspondent with people that he liked, and his letters are extremely personal and full of humor and charm, with occasional sarcastic or biting comments regarding his contem- poraries. Standley's voluminous letters to Maxon and Killip would make more interesting reading than those to me. It is 1 Perhaps the nearest Standley ever came to being really critical in print were his remarks (Jour. Arn. Arb. 11: 29. 1930) regarding the treatment of the Mimosaceae by Britton and Rose: "The genus Poponax Raf. is recognized as distinct by Britton and Rose in their recent cactusi- zation of the Mimoseae, but there is no apparent reason why this or probably any of the other segregates should be separated from the long- established unit Acacia. In all, eleven segregates from Acacia are de- scribed in the third part of the volume 23 of the North American Flora, and many of them stand upon quite as trivial characters as the cactus segregates proposed by the same authors." The important word to note here is "cactusization," which is derived from the verb "cactusize," in- vented by the late William R. Maxon to describe the process of fragment- ing or even pulverizing large genera of plants in the manner that Britton and Rose applied to the genera of Cactaceae. Cactusization has con- tinued up to the present time as a popular sport among numerous ama- teur fanciers of the Cactaceae. perhaps too bad that more volumes of letters by scientists are not pubhshed, even though some fur might fly; the pubHc would learn that scientists are human and not completely iso- lated in ivory towers. I do not have personally, of course, any letters from Stand- ley regarding his earlier publications: the Flora of New Mexico (1916), the Flora of the District of Columbia and Vicinity (1919), the treatment of the Chenopodiaceae, Nyctaginaceae, Ama- ranthaceae, and Rubiaceae for North American Flora, the Lista Preliminar de las Plantas de El Salvador (1925), the Plants of Glacier National Park (1926),^ the Flora of Tucatan (1930), or his most important work, the Trees and Shrubs of Mexico (1920- 1926).- But from 1929 on I was in continuous correspondence with Standley in regard to all sorts of botanical questions. I have selected excerpts from this correspondence which will put some facts on record, and will help to show Standley's working habits and some of his views regarding his own works and other matters. Still, his prolific output can not be ex- ' And the allied Flora of Glacier Natiotial Park, Montana, Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb. 22: 235-438. 1921. Jan. 31, 1929 - "Today I received from Dr. Wetmore a letter relating to the re- printing of the Trees and Shrubs oj Aiexico. Of course, it is a shame that more copies of the first two parts were not printed and that the work is no longer available. Recently, I saw the complete volume offered for sale at twelve dollars [a still more recent price would be more likely $50.00], which is certainly quite a reasonable price.